Simple Website Design Is Better—Science Explains Why

Visitors and users can decide whether a website design is beautiful or not to their eyes in just a fraction of a second.

This is according to a study conducted by Google. In fact, those websites which are “visually complex”—compared to those with simpler designs—are regarded as less beautiful. Lastly, those with layouts that are “prototypical” or go with the typical look of websites in their category were also rated the most beautiful.

This Google study is just one of the numerous studies proving that a simpler design wins the game. The next question now is, why are users naturally drawn to this style?

What Cognitive Fluency Is and Why It Matters to Your Website Design

In the simplest terms, cognitive fluency refers to the ease or difficulty of processing information and understanding it. The ease or difficulty referred to here is not necessarily associated with the information or task itself, but the feeling people associate with the process of interpreting the information.

To summarize: your brain naturally prefers to think about things that are easy and not complicated to think about.

Applying this to website design, users are naturally drawn to websites which bear semblance or are familiar to what they’re used to. This familiarity does not require them to think further as they can already instinctively navigate the website and find what they need.

Although it’s a good practice to be creative and innovative in your web design, you should also remember that deviating too far from the design or layouts that users are used to may cause your website to be branded “less beautiful.” On the other hand, this is not to encourage you from just following the trend and doing what everyone else is doing.

The best way to go about this is to do your research before building your designs. Just like how the aforementioned study showed that simple designs attract users more than intricate ones, you will be able to come across other studies that will give you new insights as to what works and what doesn’t. Doing your due diligence in reading up on the latest trends in website design can put you on the right track to creating an attractive, professional-looking website.

How to Give Your Visitors a Pleasant Experience on Your Website

It has also been observed that too much use of vibrant colors can put off visitors. Not only are they considered to have less visual appeal, but they are also considered to be “exhausting” to look at.

Visually complex websites require visitors to work hard to absorb all the visual elements that they are presented with on one go. It can be tiring for anyone’s eyes and brain to decode, process, and store, especially when it’s an overwhelming volume of information like that of a web design.

This brings us back to cognitive fluency. It doesn’t matter if the actual task of decoding and processing the information is difficult; if your users feel it is, then there’s a big chance they will exit right away and find other websites that are much easier to comprehend.

Conclusion

One way to craft excellent web design with cognitive fluency is to understand your target market and their preferences. Further, you can review case studies on other business’ design changes and the results these changes brought about. Lastly, you can get help from a digital marketing agency that specializes in designs for businesses that are in the same industry as yours to get the best results!

If you’re on the search for creative and seasoned web designers in Bangkok, we’re the ones for you! We have the right creative ingredients and marketing tools and experience to help you build a beautiful website. Get in touch with us today to get started!